Time to make the bagels...

I saw a few references to making bagels (tortminder and Sparky make 'em), but no dedicated posts.

So...we made bagels this weekend using the recipe from Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice. They were actually pretty easy.

Bagels boiling (in a wok since the recipe calls for a wide mouth pan):


Topped with 'everything' (including a little truffle salt on some):


Baked:


I thought they turned out great and I will definitely make them again (though I probably won't abandon my monthly trips to NY B&B to stock up--it's a little easier)

Them's mighty fine looking bagels. Sorry you didn't post in time for me to invite myself over to brunch--I would have brought the lox!

Hi,

Ann Fisher made bagels based on a Slate article on whether making some things at home are cheaper than buying. I have thought about this many times and have not yet done it.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Ann Fisher made bagels based on a Slate article on whether making some things at home are cheaper than buying. I have thought about this many times and have not yet done it.

Regards,

Oops, sorry Ann Fisher (somehow I missed you in my search). And thanks, Khaopat, for the link to Slate. They mention Bernard Clayton's recipe--I have that cookbook, we'll have to try his recipe next.

thaiobsessed wrote:Oops, sorry Ann Fisher (somehow I missed you in my search). And thanks, Khaopat, for the link to Slate. They mention Bernard Clayton's recipe--I have that cookbook, we'll have to try his recipe next.

I've done Clayton's bagel recipe many a time, though not recently, which is based on Jo Goldenberg's bakery in Paris. They always taste really nice, but end up looking like a poorly rolled sleeping bag.

Thaiobsessed yours look nice, and very tasty.

I've made the Reinhart recipe as well. They turned out great, but by the next day they were pretty stale tasting. I think I threw a bunch of them out. I need a backyard hog to eat all the food I throw away.

The recipe Khaopaat linked and Ann Fisher tried is the one we used, with a few minor tweaks. I've seen forums touting the Peter Reinhart recipe, and I think Figmolly made them - I'd be interested to see someone do the overnight and the two-hour recipes side-by-side and see whether the difference is significant. I don't look for a strong yeasty or proofed flavor in a bagel, to me they're more about texture - so I don't understand what an overnight proofing brings to the party.

Interestingly, both recipes apparently reference the Jo Goldenberg bakery in Paris.

Teatpuller - I think all good bagels go stale quickly; I've had good success freezing them, though. Not as good as the day we made them, but far less deterioration, especially if they're toasted after thawing.

Mhays wrote: Not as good as the day we made them, but far less deterioration, especially if they're toasted after thawing.

Commonplace and fine as this idea surely is, it makes me shudder every time I hear the suggestion to toast a bagel. I get visibly angry at places where toasting the bagel is the default treatment, and you need to ask them NOT to toast your bagel. To me, toasting a bagel entirely defeats the bagel's fresh, chewy reason for existence. In addition to just being correct, my stance on bagel toasting surely stems from being a former regular at the justifiably much-lauded Murray's Bagels in NY, where requests for a toasted bagel are treated with more antipathy than requests for ketchup at Gene & Jude's.

The overnight proof is nice because you can get them finished sometime in the A.M.

Kennyz wrote:

Mhays wrote: Not as good as the day we made them, but far less deterioration, especially if they're toasted after thawing.

Commonplace and fine as this idea surely is, it makes me shudder every time I hear the suggestion to toast a bagel. I get visibly angry at places where toasting the bagel is the default treatment, and you need to ask them NOT to toast your bagel. To me, toasting a bagel entirely defeats the bagel's fresh, chewy reason for existence. In addition to just being correct, my stance on bagel toasting surely stems from being a former regular at the justifiably much-lauded Murray's Bagels in NY, where requests for a toasted bagel are treated with more antipathy than requests for ketchup at Gene & Jude's.

Allow me to rephrase: if you are thawing frozen bagels, one way to address the inevitable soggy crust from condensation is to put the uncut thawed bagel in the toaster oven and allow it to heat up and dry out a bit (a process not entirely unlike the initial baking after boiling.) They do degrade in quality from fresh, however.

Mhays wrote:

Kennyz wrote:

Mhays wrote: Not as good as the day we made them, but far less deterioration, especially if they're toasted after thawing.

Commonplace and fine as this idea surely is, it makes me shudder every time I hear the suggestion to toast a bagel. I get visibly angry at places where toasting the bagel is the default treatment, and you need to ask them NOT to toast your bagel. To me, toasting a bagel entirely defeats the bagel's fresh, chewy reason for existence. In addition to just being correct, my stance on bagel toasting surely stems from being a former regular at the justifiably much-lauded Murray's Bagels in NY, where requests for a toasted bagel are treated with more antipathy than requests for ketchup at Gene & Jude's.

Allow me to rephrase: if you are thawing frozen bagels, one way to address the inevitable soggy crust from condensation is to put the uncut thawed bagel in the toaster oven and allow it to heat up and dry out a bit (a process not entirely unlike the initial baking after boiling.) They do degrade in quality from fresh, however.

Fine. But unless you are eating bagels made by a Jew with Brooklyn ancestry who apprenticed for 10+ years in NY, you're basically just eating the Wonder Bread of bagels. You need to look for the traditional fat and balding old man with a Brooklyn Dodgers cap, or you're not getting anything worth eating. Better to just go to NY.

I could change my religion and shave my head, I suppose...but I think my homemade bagels are well worth eating.

I made bagels today using the Serious Eats recipe. I've made bagels before, but never using this recipe. I'd say they came out pretty good. I could have baked them a little longer I guess (would have preferred them to be just a little darker), but I thought texture was just right (edited to say that they actually came out too bread-like). I did think there was a bit too much malt syrup in the recipe (and I didn't simmer too long), so I'll cut that down (by maybe a teaspoon) next time (and upon reflection, I think there's too much yeast in the recipe). Here's the photo recap:


bagels formed




bagels placed in the water/malt syrup mixture




post-simmer, egg washed, coated, pre-baking




baked and ready sesame bagels




Also made a few Cajun bagels (Cajun seasoning) - really terrific




Sexy!


Having had time to think about these bagels, I think the recipe is also a little high on yeast. They should have been denser too. Decent, but a little to Einsteins-like for me

With BBQ rub now my favorite popcorn topping, I'm wondering if a BBQ bagel might be good.
Then again, all I really want is a close-by source for a decent onion or garlic bagel.
Yes, I know where I can get good ones, I just don't frequent those neighborhoods enough.
(Mariano's carried Kaufmann's until the fire, I occasionally bought them there)

So, I finally found the bagels I've so far only dreamed of baking. In this New York Times article, Joan Nathan writes of an Oakland California bagel bakery turning out bagels of New York quality. This weekend, I put this recipe to the test and it generally passed with flying colors.

The most difficult part of the recipe was finding a key ingredient, diastatic malt powder. Although there was some debate in a bread baking post whether this powder and malted barley flour are the same, I opted to order the powder from King Arthur.




The dough itself is as easy as it gets - bread flour, yeast, diastatic malt powder, salt and water. Here's what the mass of dough looked like:




I then divided the dough into 9 balls, weighing each one to ensure that they would be roughly the same size.




There are two ways to shape the bagels - the traditional way is to make a rope, then bring the two ends together for a circle. This was a pain in the ass, so I opted for the Reinhart method. This involved forming a round ball, using a finger to poke a hole in the middle, then spreading it out from the middle. This was pretty easy.




I then prepared the simmering liquid, water and plenty of kosher salt (I added a tablespoon of barley malt syrup too). I then dropped the bagels into the simmering water, for approximately 30 seconds per side.




I then drained the bagels, and dipped them in a bowl I had filled with sesame seeds. Even after draining and drying, they were a little sticky and the sesame seeds stuck easily. I might have gone a little crazy with the sesame seeds, but I love them so . . . you may wish to go just a little lighter (or whatever toppings you prefer).




Then, I baked them on slightly greased parchment paper-topped baking sheets. Although the recipe suggests a 16-minute bake, I went nearly 25 minutes, believing that is the point when I reached the correct color. Here is what they looked like when they came out of the oven:




And here's a look at a cut bagel:




In my opinion, this is just the type of bagel you should be looking for - a crispy exterior, chewy and dense interior and good flavor. I do plan to work more with the dough to produce a sourdough, but this was a hell of a start, and resulted in the texture I was looking for. My last attempt was with the Serious Eats recipe, which in my opinion is a failure (not crisp and not dense or chewy).

Diastatic malt powder, here I come. I always liked poppyseed, cinnamon raisin, garlic bagels back when I worked at Cafe Express in Evanston. I used to open and the bagels would get dropped off in a huge paper bag still hot, not warm, but hot. I essentially haven't eaten any other bagels since then. Way too high a failure rate on just gross rings of flour. I think NY Bagel & Bialy supplied Cafe Express back then.

pairs4life wrote:I always liked poppyseed, cinnamon raisin, garlic bagels

Please tell me you liked each of these flavors of individual bagels cuz as a combo, this kinda scares me

Those look great! I really want to try it myself.

pairs4life wrote:Diastatic malt powder, here I come.

Does anyone know where to obtain this locally?

ziggy wrote:Those look great! I really want to try it myself.

pairs4life wrote:Diastatic malt powder, here I come.

Does anyone know where to obtain this locally?

Thank you for the compliment! In the baking bread thread, I discussed my failed efforts to source the powder locally. Some suggested asking at a bakery, but I just didn't feel so comfortable doing this since I really don't frequent any one bakery much, so I thought it might be presumptuous. So I ordered a one-pound package from King Arthur ($5 shipping IIRC), and it arrived three days later via regular mail (although shipped initially UPS). In any event, I'm glad to have a good size supply. I'm going to try to bake pumpernickel bagels in the next couple of days (my favorite).

BR wrote:...I then prepared the simmering liquid, water and plenty of kosher salt (I added a tablespoon of barley malt syrup too). I then dropped the bagels into the simmering water, for approximately 30 seconds per side.....

The bagels look wonderful-- just the right amount of sesame seeds. I'm surprised that your simmering liquid didn't include baking soda or other alkali. That would help with the browning. I generally use Peter Reinhart's recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/ ... els-366757

Jen

Pie-love wrote:

BR wrote:...I then prepared the simmering liquid, water and plenty of kosher salt (I added a tablespoon of barley malt syrup too). I then dropped the bagels into the simmering water, for approximately 30 seconds per side.....

The bagels look wonderful-- just the right amount of sesame seeds. I'm surprised that your simmering liquid didn't include baking soda or other alkali. That would help with the browning. I generally use Peter Reinhart's recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/ ... els-366757

Jen

Although the recipe I used did not call for baking soda in the simmering water, I used some anyway . . . just forgot to mention above. However, the linked to recipe is quite similar to Reinhart's recipe. The most significant difference is in the simmering liquid - Reinhart calls for the barley malt syrup and baking soda, whereas the recipe I relied upon calls for a lot of salt. I combined the two techniques.

boudreaulicious wrote:

pairs4life wrote:I always liked poppyseed, cinnamon raisin, garlic bagels

Please tell me you liked each of these flavors of individual bagels cuz as a combo, this kinda scares me

Not a combo, those were the "flavors"/types of bagels I liked. This was back when I ate meat, so my idea of stomping was to have a bagel, slightly warmed with ham, cheese, & honey on it.

So BR you've got me down the rabbit hole. I'm prepared to jury-rig some high gluten flour ( picked up some vital wheat gluten today), but where on earth can it be found, aside from Whole Food or pulling the plug & ordering it from King Arthur? ( I don't shop there, long story).

BR wrote:Although the recipe I used did not call for baking soda in the simmering water, I used some anyway . . . just forgot to mention above. However, the linked to recipe is quite similar to Reinhart's recipe. The most significant difference is in the simmering liquid - Reinhart calls for the barley malt syrup and baking soda, whereas the recipe I relied upon calls for a lot of salt. I combined the two techniques.

Sounds great-- I bet the salt adds a nice taste to the crust. I'll definitely use your combination method next time I make bagels-- and thanks to you I do have a mighty hankering, those were beautiful.

Jen

I started on the pumpernickel bagels yesterday, and finished them tonight. First, some pics, then discussion:


The dough



The bagel dough, shaped



Pumpernickel bagels, finished and ready to eat


I generally used Reinhart's recipe. Here are a couple of links to it: http://savoringeverybite.com/2013/02/18 ... el-bagels/ and http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguide ... -and-tools

However, in searching for pumpernickel bagel (and bread) recipes, I noticed that many called for unsweetened cocoa, a greater ratio of molasses, and even ground coffee. And looking at the pictures of the pumpernickel bagels made from Reinhart's recipe on the first link, I knew that Reinhart's recipe was not going to produce as intense a pumpernickel bagel as I desired. I didn't incorporate any coffee, but I used about 2 T of cocoa and increased the molasses by 2 T to 4 T total. Of course, I also had to increase the amount of flour a bit.

I had one of the bagels and I like it quite a bit. However, I would like a somewhat more intense flavor. So next time I'll add in some coffee, maybe increase the cocoa just a bit, and also increase the caraway, maybe by 33-50%. I might also add in onion. So it's very good for a first effort, but I'm looking for New York good here and it's not there yet. But the texture is right on - a nice crust and pretty dense with a nice chew. I could definitely use a little more practice shaping these damn things, but obviously I'm no pro . . . baby steps!

I'm certainly progressing in my bagel-making skills. The goal is an ideal New York-style bagel - perhaps not achievable at home, but I'm confident that I'm now making some pretty damn good bagels. During my last effort, I incorporated the diastatic malt powder. This time, I took another significant step, using a higher protein content by adding in vital wheat gluten to the bread flour. This brought the protein content from about 12.5% (of King Arthur bread flour) to around 14.5%. The extra effort needed to work with this higher protein dough (my hands/wrists were tired as I didn't want to burn out my KitchenAid) was well worth it as the difference in texture was very noticeable.

I relied upon several interpretations of Peter Reinhart's bagel recipe this time, including this one and this one. I did a 48-hour rise in the refrigerator. And to the boiling water, I added salt and both baking soda and barley malt syrup. My understanding is that the baking soda and syrup give the bagels that darker color that is so attractive and signifies a quality bagel.

My greatest debate was boiling time. The longer the boiling time, the tougher/chewier the bagel. I tried ranges of 1 minute, 15 seconds per side to 2 minutes, 15 seconds per side. I think the ideal time is somewhere around 1:30/1:45 per side, but I need to keep experimenting. All said and done though, I'm generally very happy with these - good flavor, good texture (some probably a bit too chewy and a couple could have harder exteriors but most very good).

Here are some pics of my bagels. Yes, I'm a little aggressive with the toppings . . . not sure there's anything wrong with that. But the night was getting a little late and I was growing tired . . .


The shaped bagels




Finished sesame seed bagel




Poppy seed bagels




Sesame seed, poppy seed and black Hawaiian sea salt bagels




Interior of a poppy seed bagel

Wow, those look awesome. You've inspired me to try. I've been doing the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day and it's good but a little dense. Thanks!

CharlotteBeth wrote:Wow, those look awesome. You've inspired me to try. I've been doing the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day and it's good but a little dense. Thanks!

Thanks - these are quite the effort but definitely worth it if you're a big fan of bagels. But they are on the denser side, which is just how I like them. In my opinion, that's one of the hallmarks of a good New York bagel, as opposed to the light, over-risen bagels many stores sell.

Thanks - these are quite the effort but definitely worth it if you're a big fan of bagels. But they are on the denser side, which is just how I like them. In my opinion, that's one of the hallmarks of a good New York bagel, as opposed to the light, over-risen bagels many stores sell.

BR: i'm curious how you feel about the bagels at reno. i think they're wonderfully chewy; though i know they aren't strictly NY style. do you not like them at all?

I saw an article yesterday online somewhere that recommended punching a hole in a ball, rather than rolling a rope and forming a ring. The point was that you'd press out less air, and get a less-dense bagel in the end result.

Any experience with that approach?